Creative Coding

Our project aimed to inspire pupils to use coding as a creative tool to produce tangible workpieces, such as bags with their embroidery designs, fostering a creative learning experience in coding ...

Our project aimed to inspire pupils to use coding as a creative tool to produce tangible workpieces, such as bags with their embroidery designs, fostering a creative learning experience in coding and computational thinking. We encouraged teachers, students, and project participants to embrace computational thinking as a creative process by merging coding and embroidery. Collaboration among teachers allowed them to enhance their teaching techniques in coding by interacting with more experienced educators. We challenged stereotypes linking coding to boys and embroidery to girls, promoting gender equality in computational thinking. Additionally, we aimed to share knowledge about Creative Coding globally. The teachers who were trained in the project implement Creative Coding in their classes and train other teachers in their school. In this way, the knowledge on creative coding is spread. Therefore, it is also helpful that we created teaching materials in different languages because it makes the material accessible for everyone, regardless of foreign language proficiency.

Our project involved a variety of activities. Firstly, together with our partners, we developed a curriculum for Creative Coding in the classroom. This included creating a lesson plan and educational materials to enable teachers to integrate creative coding into their teaching. We organized training sessions for teachers and students in Austria, Lithuania, and the Netherlands. These training sessions helped deepen understanding and develop skills in Creative Coding. Furthermore, together with our partners, we generated extensive teaching materials - tutorials and videos - to support the learning process and facilitate access to information in English but also in the different languages of our partner organisation. To enable the implementation of our ideas, we acquired embroidery machines, allowing students to bring their creative designs to life in a practical way. Additionally, we conducted project management activities to ensure the effective coordination and execution of our project goals. Lastly, we organized dissemination events to share our project's outcomes and promote Creative Coding in wider educational contexts.

Firstly, together with our partners, we collaboratively developed a curriculum for Creative Coding. This curriculum served as a guiding framework for educators and gives an indication of which teaching subjects may be involved. The focus of our curriculum also involved developing learning objectives that demonstrate how computational thinking can be effectively represented through creative coding. Additionally, we created tutorials dedicated to Creative Coding. These resources were designed to facilitate the understanding and implementation of Creative Coding concepts, benefiting both teachers and students. Each project partner created text and video tutorials of their choice and translated those of the other project partners in their language. Furthermore, we established interdisciplinary courses together with the project partners. These courses provided participants with hands-on experience and knowledge. It is very important for all of us to actively spread knowledge of Creative Coding through dissemination events, advocating for its broader integration of this approach into educational settings. Moreover, the teachers who received training through our project played an important role as multipliers.